Top Edge

The modified car drove towards the city center, passing through neon-lit tunnels and elevated bridges.

On both sides of the road, most shops and apartments had their lights turned off, indicating how desolate  the place was, despite the city’s infrastructure not being destroyed by refugees.

A rail train passed overhead, with barely any people inside it.

Shen Siwei shifted his gaze away from the window and asked, “Do you experience power outages here?”

“In order to reduce energy consumption, the upper levels discourage people from being active at night. After 8 pm, public transportation in the lower part of the city shuts down,” Barn replied, adding in a sarcastic tone to his voice. “Isn’t it amazing? We’re not controlled by the upper levels.”

“Why?” Shen Siwei followed up on the conversation.

The purpose of his visit was to figure this out; otherwise, he would have killed a long time ago.

Barn shrugged indifferently and said, “You’ll have to ask klet.”

This answer aligned with the information the military already possessed. Apart from klet, no one knew the details of the city’s energy supply.

Shen Siwei ceased his questions and redirected his gaze out the window.

The deserted streets had not a single person, only AI janitors patrolling .

Tiny robots picked up fruit peels from the roadside, took half a second to assess their composition, and then opened their mouths to throw the peels into built-in incinerators, instantly disposing of the waste.

Suddenly, gunshots were heard through the air, hitting the small robot and transforming its work into a pile of scrap metal.

Following the sound of gunfire, Shen Siwei  saw a store activating its defense system, killing two robbers with bullets. The innocent robot had happened to be nearby and became collateral damage.

The shop owner stood at the store’s entrance, holding a shotgun and shouting at the corpses of the robbers, “I told you, if you can’t afford it, get lost!”

“Foolish,” Barn’s contemptuous voice rang in Shen Siwei’s ears. “Despite the warnings, they still provoked the shops with defense systems.”

Not all residents of District Z in the western area of City X had evacuated. Some stayed indoors, while others relied on defense systems installed in their shops to continue normal operations.

Now, this place had turned into a war zone, causing prices to skyrocket. The situation just now was probably due to the store owner demanding a high price, which led the refugees to resort to robbery.

However, none of this mattered to Shen Siwei; he only felt sorry for the small robot.

After a short while, the modified car slowly entered the city center’s music square.Not long after, the modified car slowly drove into the city center’s music square.

On the square, there was a dirty small container, and many homeless people were standing or sitting around the square, looking like they were waiting to see something exciting.

Shen Siwei suddenly had a bad feeling in his heart. He frowned and looked at Barn, asking, “Where is klet?”

Barn raised his chin and pointed to the container, saying, “In the command center.”

The container was pitch black, and nothing could be seen clearly. Shen Siwei didn’t believe for a moment that it could be the so-called command center, but Barn continued, “The command center is underground, and the container is the entrance.”

It sounded reasonable, but still strange.

How could they make the entrance so conspicuous?

Shen Siwei got out of the car and cautiously looked around, standing still in place.

Barn seemed to lose patience. He walked towards the container while urging Shen Siwei, “Negotiator, don’t you want to see klet?”

Shen Siwei did want to see klet and didn’t want to waste any more time.

Seeing Barn entering the container himself, Shen Siwei slightly got rid of his doubts. He followed behind Barn into the darkness. However, as soon as the two of them were completely inside, his bad feeling turned out to be true.

Barn who was in front suddenly made a strange noise. With the dim light, Shen Siwei noticed that Barn had moved forward, creating distance between them.

In the next second, shadows flashed before and behind him, followed by the sound of the iron door closing.

Shen Siwei hadn’t had time to figure out what was happening when he saw the iron panels of the container suddenly fall, revealing a square iron cage hidden inside the box.

The cage had two doors in the front and back,  covering from top to bottom.

Barn deliberately distanced himself from Shen Siwei and released the two iron doors fixed on the top of the container. Once the doors came down, they locked Shen Siwei inside the iron cage.

At the same time, the fountains at the music square suddenly turned on, and water jets shot into the sky like fireworks, responding to the crowd’s wild cheers.

Drops of water the size of beans fell from above, wetting Shen Siwei’s hair and clothes. His already dirty uniform clung tightly to his body, making him look worse, which further excited the onlookers.

“The negotiator got wet!”

“Make the water even bigger!”

Shen Siwei stood expressionless, half-closed eyes, allowing the water droplets to slide down his cheeks.

He coldly glanced at the iron cage that confined him and noticed a lot of hair and bloodstains on the railing. He guessed that this was a cage the homeless used to capture mutant monsters.

The environment outside the Life Tree was harsh, not only due to the severe climate but also the rampant mutant monsters caused by radiation. This was also why the homeless always wanted to return to live inside the Life Tree.

If Shen Siwei remembered correctly, the homeless didn’t have such large tools for hunting mutant monsters before. It seemed that a lot had changed outside during the twenty years he was frozen.

“Negotiator, don’t just stand there like an idiot!” someone shouted at Shen Siwei, “Take off your gloves and let’s have a look!”

Others immediately joined in, “Yeah! Take it off bit by bit! 

Listening to the unbearable nasty remarks, Shen Siwei closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and suppressed the anger rising inside him.

 

A dirty, small container was placed on the square, and many refugees stood or sat around the square, eagerly waiting for something to happen.His muscle strength was stronger than Barn’s mechanical right arm, and he could effortlessly break the iron bars of the cage.

But he couldn’t do so.

Once his identity got exposed, it meant the mission had failed. Shen Siwei, in any case, did not want to return empty-handed.

“What’s wrong? Didn’t the money come through?” Barn, who was closest to Shen Siwei, had a lewd gaze that he made no effort to hide.

He turned on the little computer in his palm, accessed the currency payment system, and then tossed the virtual coins projected in the air towards Shen Siwei with his thumb.

Ordinary people wouldn’t deliberately close their payment channels, so Shen Siwei’s little computer automatically captured the transmitted currency code and made a sound: “Received 50 coins.”

Barn burst into laughter. “Is that enough for you to strip naked now?”

The suppressed anger was on the verge of coming out, and Shen Siwei moved his fingers, wanting to break open the iron cage, but in the end, he held back.

So, this was the greeting Klett gave him?

The calls for Shen Siwei to undress grew louder and tested his patience at every moment.

However, at that moment, the sound of roaring engines suddenly came from outside the square. Several off-road vehicles slowly drove into the center of the square and stopped by the iron cage.

The square immediately fell silent, and even the music fountain stopped.

A few people got off the vehicles, and Shen Siwei immediately recognized the man walking in front as Klett.

His 1.95-meter tall figure appeared more exaggerated than it did in the videos, and his rugged features seemed more meticulous than sculptures, with every line perfectly highlighting his heroic aura.

He was wearing a tight black T-shirt with a tactical vest on top, fingerless gloves on his hands, and a pair of high-top Martin boots on his feet. His deep eyes scanned the refugees in the square, and everyone  avoided his gaze, not daring to make a sound.

Seeing this scene, an idea suddenly popped into Shen Siwei’s mind—Klett seemed to be unaware of what was happening here.

Taking his gaze back from his subordinates, Klett casually glanced at Shen Siwei and then looked at Barn. “Quite lively.”

His tone didn’t reveal any emotions, as if he was stating a fact. But judging from the reactions of the other refugees, this didn’t seem to be a good sign.

“Just playing around,” Barn pointed to Shen Siwei with his chin. “I brought the negotiator.”

“Did I ask you to?” Klett asked.

“He came all the way here to negotiate with us. How can we just let him go like that? We should at least…” Barn paused for a moment and continued, “communicate, right?”

“Have you finished communicating?” Klett asked again.

Barn was just babbling, unsure how to respond. He reluctantly shifted his gaze elsewhere.

“I said I won’t negotiate, so I won’t. I’ll take this person with me.” Klett left a warning and then took a step closer to Barn, lowering his voice, “Behave yourself and don’t cause trouble for me.”

The refugees around the square perhaps couldn’t hear the conversation between the two bosses clearly, but Shen Siwei, who was right next to them, heard it loud and clear.

Obviously, Klett didn’t want to negotiate with him at all. It was Barn’s decision to bring him into the city without Klett’s consent.

He walked to the side of the iron cage, unlocked the locked iron door with his bare hands, and said to the soaked Shen Siwei, “Come out.”

Shen Siwei raised an imperceptible eyebrow.

This iron cage was no toy. Judging from the twisted iron bars at the lock, it was impossible to open the iron door with bare hands without too much strength.

—Could it be that Klett’s arm was also a mechanical prosthesis?

There was no time to think too much, so Shen Siwei  walked out of the iron cage.

Barn, who was beside him, was clearly unwilling to let Shen Siwei be taken away so easily. Suddenly raising his voice, he said, “I’m the one who brought him here. You say you’re taking him away just like that?”

With Barn taking the lead, the other refugees seemed to suddenly gain confidence and joined in the commotion. “That’s right, why don’t you reason with us?”

The protest grew louder, and the people with Klett loaded their bullets, while the protesting refugees also took out their weapons.

This scene surprised Shen Siwei a bit. It turned out that the refugees were not united amongst themselves as he thought.The smell of gunpowder grew stronger.  Klett calmly opened the payment system and flicked a virtual coin to Barn. “Is that enough?”

Barn’s little computer immediately emitted a sound. “Received 1 coin.”

Klett’s subordinates couldn’t help but sneer, but Barn’s expression was extremely unpleasant.

One coin, no different from dismissing a beggar.

Shen Siwei suddenly developed a slight fondness for Klett because just now, Barn had humiliated him, and at least Klett helped him get back some dignity.

But upon second thought, Shen Siwei felt that something was wrong.

His body took twenty years to heal, with the military’s most advanced black technology.

Although he wasn’t sure how valuable his body really was, Klett actually bought him for just one coin. Did he even ask for his opinion?

Klett ignored Barn and turned around, walking towards the off-road vehicle.

He exposed his back without any guard, but even so, Barn didn’t dare to make any moves from behind him.

Before getting into the car, Klett paused and finally turned his gaze to Shen Siwei.

He looked at Shen Siwei from top to bottom, then reached across the car window and threw a jacket over Shen Siwei’s head. “Get in the car.”